Climbing Ents
by Clever Hobbit
Summary: A present day seven year old girl goes out into the forest to climb trees and accidentally climbs up something that has not been seen by mortal eyes for thousands of years...
1. The First Encounter

Hello!  
  
To those of you that have been reading my other story: I've kind of hit a bump in the road with that. I don't know where to go with it. I have ideas, but not for the next chapter. So I'm doing this little story that's been tugging at my mind for a bit now.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings. At least, I don't think I do. I wish I did, though.  
  
'Oh no!' said Treebeard. 'None have died from the inside, as you might say. Some have fallen in the evil chances of the long years, of course, and more have grown tree-ish.' -from The Two Towers, chapter four- Treebeard.  
  
~*~  
  
Ellen looked up at the tall tree standing by the little stream. In all of her seven-and-a-half years, she hadn't been able to climb this one yet. There were no proper branches close enough for her to reach. It was going to be a challenge.  
  
Of course, Mama didn't want her to climb trees anymore, not with her experience of falls and injuries. But that just went ahead and added another challenge to the whole deal: the challenge of not getting caught.  
  
Gritting her teeth, which was hard to do, as they were rather loose and wiggly, Ellen stepped up to the roots of the tree and felt the bark for a good handhold. She found a little crevice that she could squeeze her fingers into and a good stub for her foot. Hoisting herself up, her agile fingers flew over the surface of the trunk, looking for another crack.  
  
As she traveled higher, Ellen noticed a difference about this tree that she had not seen before in other trees. When she reached the branches, her hair didn't snag in them like it usually did. Normally when she climbed, her tightly wound red curls would get caught on twigs and branches. Sometimes that was her fault, because she had moved her head against a bough and it had tangled itself with the sticks and leaves. But other times, the branches almost seemed to move themselves, tugging her hair like the mean classmates at her school.  
  
One such incident with the mobile trees had left her with a cut and a black eye.  
  
~*~  
  
Ellen had been walking through the trees on a previously unexplored route when a great gust of wind swept along and blew her hair into a gnarled branch that was level with her head. Somehow, her hair had gotten tangled in a very strange way amongst the branches. It looked as if a small hand of twigs was holding on to a clump of her curls. After a few minutes later, she had untangled most of her hair, but was too impatient to do the rest. She clenched the strands of hair in one fist and pushed the offending branch away with the other hand, freeing the trapped lock. Her head smarted a little, as some of the strands had been pulled out. Just as she was about to turn away, the branch whipped back at her and struck her across the face on its own accord. A cluster of acorns caught her in the eye, and the twigs raked her face with shallow scratches.  
  
When Ellen sat up (for the force of the blow had knocked her over), she was sobbing and clutching her at the left side of her face while staring fearfully at the branch with her good eye. Through her tears, she could have sworn that she saw the twigs curl up into little fists around her torn- out hair. The branch swayed menacingly and took another swipe at her. She shrieked and ran home as fast as she could. Her mother had attempted to soothe her, but to no avail.  
  
"Shh, shh, shh, it's okay sweetie, mummy's here. Let me see your face. That's it."  
  
Ellen had reluctantly surrendered her face for closer inspection, still sniffling a little. "B-but mommy," she had stuttered, "the tree was alive! It moved by i'self!"  
  
"Honey," crooned her mother as she applied antiseptic to Ellen's cheek, "trees are living things, yes, but they can't move by themselves. You know that."  
  
"Alive?" Ellen paled visibly. "They are alive? Really?"  
  
"No no no," said her mother quickly, realizing what she had implied. "That's not what I-" But it was too late. The idea had fixed its self in her head. Ellen's mother had condemned herself to nights and nights of waking up from Ellen screaming from nightmares of giant walking trees that tapped at her window at night, reaching with long branches.  
  
~*~  
  
But Ellen had soon gotten over that, her urge to climb the trees overpowering some nighttime fear.  
  
She still kept away from that tree, though.  
  
At the top of this tree, Ellen couldn't see over the other tree tops, but she did like to look at the little white buds of small flowers that were about to bloom. There were also little orange-red berries. She was very tempted to eat them, but her mother had told her not to eat berries that she found in the forest. But there was something very familiar about this tree. Something about what she had seen in a book. What was it? Was it the name of this tree?  
  
"R-" she sounded, trying to think. "Row- rown, rowa- Rowan!" she said triumphantly. "Rowan tree!"  
  
Proud with her success, she decided to take a birds-eye view of the stream. She crawled out to the end of a branch, which was spread out like a hand with surplus fingers, and looked down. It was very pretty. She stared at it, wondering how deep it was. Probably not too deep at all. Ellen fished into her pocket to see what she could drop into it. Bits of string, candy wrapper, smushed chocolate bar (she crammed that into her mouth), aha! A marble!  
  
She threw the marble down at the water as hard as she could. It made a surprisingly sizable splash for a little marble, and she was amazed to see that the droplets that landed on the banks didn't slide down the blades of grass and sink into the ground. They lay there, glistening, like little colored beads.  
  
"Wow," she whispered. She leaned over as far as she could, staring at the drops. "Sparkly!" Ellen giggled, and then sat back up. She swung herself upside down and dangled by her legs, shrieking with laughter at how the world looked topsy-turvy, and at how, when hanging there, at the top of the tree it looked astonishingly like an upside-down face. She hung there for a while, and it was only after she felt her head pounding from the blood rushing down that she thought that she should get up and get down. The problem was getting up.  
  
At first she struggled to reach the branch and find a hold to get back up, but that made her swing back and forth, which scared her very much. She hung there for a little more, before beginning to contemplate taking one leg off and then trying to swing herself up. That thought scared her even more than swinging back and forth. But she figured, as the pounding feeling in her head escalated to a full-blown headache, that it might work.  
  
Unfortunately for her, she didn't have a grasp of Newton's laws concerning gravity. And, even more unfortunate for her, she had never had her legs this numb before. Under normal circumstances, with her legs with full feeling, it would have been hard for her to pull off at best. But now, with absolutely no feeling below her knees, it wasn't a possibility.  
  
"AAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!" She screeched as she fell from her precarious perch. Falling headfirst at the ground, she had no chance of survival whatsoever.  
  
But, luckily for her, her antics on the branch and her loud screech had woken up the creature that caught her. Of course, that frightened her just as much as falling, as the large limb of the tree she had been climbing swooped down and caught her halfway to the ground.  
  
"MAMA!" she screamed, as she stared into the face of the "tree". "MOMMY! THE TREES ARE ALIVE! LEMME GO! PLEASE!"  
  
The creature holding her let out a small "hoom" and brought her closer to its face. Ellen went silent, and quaking with terror.  
  
"Hmm," it said slowly, looking her directly in the face. "Hmm, yes, you look familiar to me."  
  
Ellen let out a little squeak, then strengthened her resolve a little. "Whoaryou?" She looked it in the eyes and was surprised to see that it did not have that malicious air to it that the trees that pulled her hair did.  
  
"Hm, you are quite like them," it said, as if it didn't hear her. "But they did not seem so young as you."  
  
"Who is they? Who are you?" she squeaked. Despite the fact that this creature had saved her, and it did not seem to want to harm her, she was still terrified.  
  
"They were little folk like you, probably gone by now. I have not seen one in many ages, as you would say. And I am Bregalad, or Quickbeam in your language."  
  
"Quickbeam," she whispered. "What do you want?"  
  
"I do not want anything, at least not from you, child." The tree stopped and thought. "Yes, you are very like Treebeard's friends, the little folk."  
  
"Who are the little folk?" asked Ellen, now somewhat over her fear.  
  
"Oh, they are-" Quickbeam was cut off by a loud cry.  
  
"ELLEN! WHERE ARE YOU?"  
  
Quickbeam lowered Ellen to the ground and set her down. He rose up and stood still, just as Ellen's mother burst into the clearing.  
  
"Ellen!" Ellen's mother ran over to her. "What happened?"  
  
Suddenly, Ellen felt as tongue-tied as she had been in front of Quickbeam. "I was- climbing. And- I thought the tree was alive. Not this tree," she added as her mother glanced at Quickbeam. For some reason, she wanted to keep this tree a secret. "It was- back there," she motioned vaguely, "somewhere. I just got scared again and yelled without thinking."  
  
"Oh Ellen-" her mother swept her up into her arms. "Don't ever do that again. You scared me half to death." With Ellen secured in her arms, she began to walk away.  
  
Ellen looked at the tree standing by the stream, with the beads of water still on the grass, and gave a little wave. She wasn't positive, but she could have sworn that Quickbeam waved back.  
  
~*~  
  
As soon as the woman and the child were gone, Bregalad began to hum to himself. "Yes, she was very like Treebeard's friends, What were their names? Oh, Merry and Pippin. Now, how did that verse go?  
  
"And hungry as hunters,  
  
The hobbit children,  
  
The laughing-folk,  
  
The little people.  
  
"Hmm," Bregalad hummed, "Yes, I remember them well." With that, he strode off deep into the forest.  
  
~*~  
  
So, I would like comments on this! I might just keep it a one-chapter fic, but I might expand on it, with Ellen growing up and visiting Quickbeam periodically in her life. Your wish is my command, reviewers! 


	2. I Like You: You're good!

Hi, I'm back again! Sorry for the long wait- school. Ick. But I like school. Our friends like Lord of the Rings, yes they do, Precious. They likeses it as much as we do.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own it. Never have, and probably never will.  
  
'Most of the trees are just trees, of course; but many are half awake. Some are quite wide awake and a few are, well, ah, well, getting Entish. That is going on all the time. When that happens to a tree, you find that some have bad hearts.'- From 'The Two Towers,' chapter four- Treebeard  
  
~*~  
  
Quickbeam basked in the summer sunlight, waiting for Ellen to come. She came every day, now, and Quickbeam had begun to look forward to her visits. 'Hmm,' he thought, 'she is very faithful in coming to visit me now.' After the first encounter, she hadn't come anywhere near that clearing for about a month or so, too petrified of the living trees. That changed very quickly, though, after another encounter with one of the more malicious trees.  
  
~*~  
  
Ellen was incredibly proud of herself. She had given that stuffy babysitter the slip, and all on her own, too! She allowed herself a little self- satisfied smirk, and then wiped it off, her conscience and guilt getting the better of her. But, the darker side of her whispered, you haven't been outside for a while, and now that your mom is gone for the day, it's your day off too. I'll bet that that old lady will sleep for hours. Go on, keep going. How easily she succumbed to temptations like that.  
  
She had been walking down one of the more familiar paths, drinking in the different shades of green and brown and the occasional bright flashes of birds flitting through the trees, when she stopped and stared at something that she had never seen before.  
  
There, by a curve in the little dirt road, was a hollow, rotting tree that she had never seen before. It was giving off an awful sickly-sweet stench, like someone had drenched the wood with a mixture of vanilla scent and the smell that garbage trucks gave off. There were also odd depressions behind it, as if something large had walked over to it and then disappeared. Curious, she cautiously stepped over to it, still wary from that last meeting with that Brega-beam, whatever it was.  
  
On closer inspection, she could see that, though the tree was hollow and decaying, there was no sign of anything like ant holes and chipmunk hoards. She reached out and tried to carefully take off a splinter of bark to scrutinize it a little more closely. Her mom hadn't cut her nails in a while, so she figured that it would be pretty easy to scrape off a small chunk. Sliding her fingernails easily under a crack, she tried to pry off a piece, but it was firmer than it looked. Now her fingernails were starting to hurt from the tension. Ellen tried to get her nails out, but, to her bewilderment and alarm, they were stuck. It was very strange, she mused, as that crack was larger when she put her fingernails in. It was as if they had shrunk- closed around her nails. Then she was hit by a thought with a shock- What if this tree was alive, too? What if it was like the one that had hit her? What if those odd depressions were really its tracks? What if-  
  
But her brain didn't allow her to think of the possibilities. She panicked, and started tugging at her hands, trying to unstick the fingernails. The tree started to groan and creak, and the decaying branches moved, although there was no wind. Ellen started to pull harder, panic overwhelming the pain. With a sudden *shick* seven of her fingernails came out of the crack, and only the index finger of her right hand remained. The tree was groaning louder now. Other trees close by were starting to sway.  
  
Ellen began to whimper. She hadn't ever been this frightened before. Something was stirring deep inside of her, like some sort of primeval instinct awakening from the past. Survival of the fittest. She could move faster than some old tree. What was one little fingernail? Fear would drown out the pain. Some deep feeling told her so.  
  
She wildly jerked away, and felt her nail pull back, and then let go completely. She lost her balance and sprawled out on the ground. It was a moment before she realized that her full nail was still imbedded in the tree. She looked down at her finger, and saw that it was bleeding freely. There was crimson blood all over the path. Ellen felt nauseated, and clapped her left hand over her mouth. She staggered up, and that was when things became really terrifying.  
  
An enormous branch dropped down by her side, just scant few feet away. She shrieked, and reeled back, only to have a second branch sideswipe her arm.  
  
"MAMA!" Ellen cried. "MAMA, MAMA!" In the rain of branches and her panic, one small rational part of her brain told her that mama couldn't help her; she was gone for the day. But there was one that could help- she just needed his name. It was that rowan tree. What was his name? A small branch thumped on her shoulder. She fell again, and rolled out of the way of another one. Then she remembered.  
  
"QUICKBEAM!" she screamed as loud as she could. "QUICKBEAM, QUICKBEAM, QUICKBEAM! HELP ME!" The branches kept coming. She wasn't sure if she could make it without being hit for too much longer- then she heard an angry bellow cut through the air. The wind ceased to blow, the branches stopped falling, and she heard, over her choking sobs, the crunch of heavy footsteps coming towards her.  
  
She looked up and quivered, even though she knew Quickbeam was here to help her. At about fourteen feet high, striding towards her quickly, with angrily flashing eyes, she couldn't help but let out a little muffled squeak.  
  
At that Quickbeam looked down and saw Ellen, nursing her various injuries. He gently scooped her up and placed her on a branch above his head. He turned his head towards the rotting tree and his eyes flashed, enraged that it had tried to hurt the young child that reminded him fondly of the past. He placed his gnarled hand flat on the trunk of the tree and murmured something. Ellen liked the sound of his voice when he spoke this time. Instead of reminding her of an old man, now it reminded her of trees in the breeze and ageless things growing and growing, content to do nothing more.  
  
The rotting tree gave a heavy shudder and the sickly-sweet scent left. Ellen thought that the air seemed- lighter, somehow. As if a heavy presence had been lifted away. Quickbeam turned and strode off, back to his normal pace. They walked for a while, and then he spoke.  
  
"Hmm, I haven't felt so hasty for a while," he murmured. "I think that I shall need a drink."  
  
"Of what?" Ellen asked, still a bit wary.  
  
"Ent-draught, of course," he said. He glanced up and saw her finger. "And by the look of it, you might need some too, little one."  
  
They passed the rest of the time in silence, Ellen glancing at the trees nervously, and Quickbeam humming to himself. Very soon, they were at the place where Ellen had first climbed him, the wide clearing with the little and a mossy stone in the middle. For the first time, Ellen noticed that there was a circle of rowan trees around the clearing. Quickbeam set her down on the mossy rock and picked up two earthen vessels, one large and one small. He turned his back to her, but Ellen could see he was ladling something into the vessels. When he turned around again, he handed Ellen the smaller bowl. She wondered what he meant for her to do with it.  
  
"Hmm, drink it!" he said when he saw Ellen's hesitation. "It will help you."  
  
Ellen couldn't see how drinking something would help a missing fingernail, a cut on the arm, and a welt on her shoulder. She shrugged, winced at the pain in her shoulder, and then started to sip at it. It didn't taste like anything she knew (which wasn't a lot- she usually stuck stubbornly to macaroni and cheese, pizza, and peanut butter toast), and yet she knew it well, at the same time. It tasted of a light breeze, the smell of rain made solid. A delightful tingle began to run up her body, starting at her feet, then working her way up. She stifled a sound that was halfway between a giggle and a shriek, and then stared in amazement at her maimed finger. The oddest feeling was dancing up and down the tissues. It was as if there were tiny people hopping around and shaking with laughter around in there. And there was something hard coming up- under the blood on her finger, before her very eyes, a new fingernail was sprouting!  
  
On her shoulder, there was the oddest pressure- she pulled back her sleeve and saw that the welt was sinking back into her skin, as if it had never existed. The same thing was happening to her cuts and bruises. Her hair, which had previously been a thick, unruly tangle that came down to her shoulders was now about an inch longer.  
  
Before long, she felt back to normal. No- she was *better* than normal- she didn't feel as tired as she usually did from staying up late, playing in her room when her mom thought she was asleep.  
  
"What was that?" she asked curiously.  
  
"Hm? Oh, it was an Ent-draught," said Quickbeam. "It helps mortals like you heal and grow, while it is the drink that sustains us."  
  
"What's an Ent? I've never heard that word before."  
  
"I am an Ent, a herder of the trees and a shepherd of the forest."  
  
A little giggle escaped Ellen. "How can you herd trees if they don't move? That sounds silly."  
  
"Ah, but some trees do move, as you have seen, youngling. You should be wary; I think that you should not roam around alone anymore. Some of the trees hearts are getting blacker, as you have seen. They will harm you, if they can. If you wish to walk around the forest alone, come to me. I will go with you, or try to be nearby. The trees will not harm you if I am near."  
  
Ellen sat quietly for a while, thinking about the new information she had just been given. That explained a lot. She was obviously deliberating something of great importance. Finally, she drew herself up to her full height (which wasn't too much, in her opinion), and said, "I think I should go back now."  
  
"Yes, you must be missed by now. Would you like me to come?"  
  
"Yes, please."  
  
Quickbeam, who was walking slower than usual to make sure Ellen matched his pace, and Ellen walked for a while in a somewhat companionable silence until the end of the forest was in sight, and Ellen could see the light- blue siding of her house. Before she left, Ellen had one last thing to say.  
  
"Quickbeam?"  
  
"Yes, little one?"  
  
"Thank you." She turned, as if to go home, and then stopped and faced him to tell him the conclusion of her thinking.  
  
"I like you. You're good." Ellen broke into a brilliant, gap-toothed smile, turned on her heel, and fled back to her house, where, hopefully, that old babysitter was still asleep.  
  
~*~  
  
Quickbeam smiled fondly at this memory, and then was brought out of his thoughts by the noisy rustling and snapping of dead twigs underfoot that always heralded Ellen's arrival.  
  
"Hi!" She said happily. "Your tree-friends did me a favor. Look!" She opened her small mouth wide and Quickbeam saw a tiny, bloody gap in her teeth.  
  
"They knocked it out for me!" she exclaimed, displaying a small tooth in the palm of her hand.  
  
"Why is that a good thing?" Quickbeam was still puzzled about this little child and her culture. Over the centuries, Men had forgotten about Ents. When all of the Elves had left, Men had also dismissed them as a fairy tale, and turned them into tiny, humorous magical beings. The same thing had happened to Balrogs and dragons and Orcs. Men evolved into an almost entirely different species, though they looked the same. But some of them still displayed evil tendencies, like the men of the South and East had in the past. And many still held no regard for the trees. Very few Ents still remembered the times when Ents could walk from the Old Forest to Fangorn without ever leaving the trees. Quickbeam couldn't remember. All of the time, the forests were shrinking more and more.  
  
"Because I get money for the tooth!" she giggled, startling him out of his musings yet again. "I'll put it under my pillow when I go to sleep, and when I wake up, the tooth fairy will have left money for me!" Her face grew serious, like she was thinking. "What does she do with all of those teeth, anyways? And where does she get the money? The older kids tell me that she broke into Fort Knox to get the money, but I don't believe them. Did you ever get money for your teeth when you were little?"  
  
Quickbeam smiled at her endless stream of chatter. 'If only she knew how long ago I was young,' he thought. "No," he said aloud. "We do not need money in the forest, remember?"  
  
"Oh," she said. "That's right. I forgot." She hummed a wordless tune and then started to climb up into his branches. Once she was settled in, she cried out, "Let's go!" and they set off for another walk among the green leaves of the forest.  
  
~*~  
  
Okay. I have officially decided that I am posting this chapter in honor of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, because their birthdays are on September 22! I only just realized it today. Now, to respond!  
  
SirusBlackRules: I got that image of poor Frodo stuck in your head? Man, I feel so evil. I hate that image, too, but I can't help thinking about it. And you have your wish- the orcs that took everything from him *did* die! They got into a huge fight over him and they all killed each other, except for maybe two or three of them.  
  
shirebound: Thank you so much! I didn't expect a review from you! I love your work! The thought of Ents and hobbits and Elves, and if they still exist, fascinates me.  
  
LalaithoftheBruinen: Thank you! And I have a few plans regarding upcoming chapters- I get them from walking around in the woods behind my house and thinking.  
  
Elberethia: It's never happened to me, either. All in the woods in my house, it's mainly coniferous trees. They have good branches, but all of them are high in the air and hard to reach. I wish it would happen, though. But sometimes the trees outside my window look like they're waving at me occasionally.  
  
ShireElf: Well, I thought of how Tolkien writes in the beginning of FotR as if hobbits were still around. You know, how they're not seen very often by us because they are less numerous and very adept at hiding? I kind of thought about that, and said, "Well, if hobbits can hide from us, then what's to say that we haven't noticed Ents because they look so much like trees?" And since Treebeard said that none of the Ents have ever died from old age, then I just sort of assumed that maybe there would still be some around, if they hadn't followed to ill chances over the years. Do you get it?  
  
Black Waltz 0: Yay! I got a review from you *and* Oddeye! I'm still trying to figure out who he really is, by the way.  
  
heather: Don't worry, I plan to keep this going for a bit. Thanks! I'm so glad that there are so many people that like this!  
  
Thank you so much for reviewing! I'd like some more comments on this chapter. Bye! 


	3. Tears

I am SO sorry for the delay- Let's just say that I've been experiencing a newfound displeasure (for me) that I'd like to call, not writer's block, but something else. I shall call it- winter, as my muse for living, growing, green things is dead for this time. I want it to be spring! I want to smell the rich soil of my garden, see the riot of colors made up of birds and flowers and plants, hear the gentle summer breeze, and I want to run barefoot through my back yard without having to worry about getting frostbite and slipping on the over-abundant ice! Why must it be February? Whatever happened to carefree summer days without schoolwork or early mornings?  
  
But I digress.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't profit off of this or the Lord of the Rings- rather, that profits off of me, as I am using all of the money I own to scrape together enough to go see the Return of the King multiple times, which is why this chapter may seem a wee bit influenced.  
  
~*~  
  
Ellen rolled over restlessly. She couldn't sleep, and couldn't pin down the reason *why*. She threw back the covers, sat up, and walked over to her window, suspiciously glaring at the dark corners of her room. She didn't like the dark much. But she couldn't think of anyone her age that did.  
  
She pressed her forehead to the cool windowpane stared out at the road in front of her house. More accurately, she stared at the branches obscuring her view of the road in front of her house. A large gust of wind made the green leaves shiver and shake, rubbing together and rustling with the wind's rhythm. Shhhhh. Shhhh.  
  
She grinned. "Shh yourself!" she murmured softly. Quickbeam had told her that not all of the moving trees were bad. She wasn't sure about that, but she knew the tree in front of her house was pretty safe. That was the first tree she had ever climbed, and it seemed to not mind that she still sat in its branches occasionally. It also didn't seem to mind Ellen had used it for a makeshift ladder, from her window to the ground.  
  
"Don't tell anyone," she had whispered into the trunk the first time she had climbed out her window to its branches. It was a reasonable request, as most trees didn't talk, but Ellen had just wanted to be sure all the same.  
  
Yes, there were several things her mother didn't know about pertaining to trees. She didn't know that Ellen talked to them. She didn't know that Ellen visited with them. And she certainly had no idea at how Ellen had gotten to be so tall for a child her age.  
  
"You're turning into a giraffe!" She had exclaimed one day after Ellen had returned from the forest. She had gotten into another nasty scrape with a tree, and it was an incident she cared not to remember. In fact, she couldn't remember, because she had apparently been hit on the head with a rather large branch. Quickbeam had said that she must have lost her memory, and had given her a draft of Ent draught to take care of the lump on her head.  
  
"Really?" Ellen had asked enthusiastically.  
  
"No, that's just an expression to say you're getting taller. And look," she said, lifting a lock of Ellen's curls, "at your hair! You need another haircut already!" He mother had looked her in the eye and smiled. "I'm not sure I understand how you grow so fast." At that, she had lifted Ellen up, swung her around and had begun to tickle her mercilessly.  
  
Ellen's eyes were getting heavy. She yawned, and then lifted her head from the cool windowpane, rubbing the cold circle on her forehead as she stumbled back into her bed to sleep.  
  
I'll go visit Quickbeam after school tomorrow, she thought blearily as her eyes shut.  
  
~*~  
  
The bulldozers nearby her school didn't catch Ellen's attention at once, as she was too busy talking to her friends on the bus to notice. It was the shriek of an enthusiastic little first-grader that caught her ear.  
  
"COOL!" the little blonde boy shrilled. "LOOKIT THOSE AWESEM TONKAS!"  
  
"Bulldozers," corrected the boy across the aisle from him, who was in fourth grade, automatically giving him a seemingly higher authority on matters such as these. But the first grader didn't hear, as his nose was pressed against the glass, staring (almost hungrily) at the machines.  
  
"Oh no," Ellen whispered. Her stomach clenched as she saw the fence being set up to barricade off the small wood of thick, gnarled trees that stood across the road from her school. She could easily guess what was going to happen.  
  
Ellen turned from the window and sank down in her seat. She had come to hate those tools of destruction, especially when they were used against the more ancient of the trees. Quickbeam had told her that those trees usually "had voices of their own", whatever that meant. She also had learned that many of the nicest trees were very old, too, but there were just as many bad ones. As much as she despised those bad trees, she felt sad at the thought of them being destroyed.  
  
What she really regretted, though, was that she had never had the chance to go into this particular grove. She had meant to, every time she looked out the window of her classroom at it. Now it looked like she would never get the chance to do so.  
  
The hiss of the bus doors opening jerked her from her reverie. The little blond boy shot off the bus, pushing past the people in front of him, and then stood, staring in awe, at the machines. Several other little boys came and joined him. Ellen got off the bus as if she were walking in a horrid dream. The air smelt acrid and unnatural, as smoke billowed and choked from the bulldozers. The restless rustles of the little boys and their excited jabbering about how "awsem" those "Tonkas" were filled her ears, along with the grinding groan of the bus engines and bulldozers.  
  
"What are you building?" called one of the braver first-graders to one of the men standing there.  
  
"Housing complex," shouted the man over the roar of the engines.  
  
Suddenly a loud cracking noise rent the air, and the kids began to cheer as the trees started to topple. The teachers began to herd the children to their classrooms, and the little crowd of kids moaned as they were torn away from the machines. Ellen gladly turned away, not wanting to see the destruction that was already underway.  
  
~*~  
  
Ellen ran down the path, panting and jumping over the branches that had fallen from the wind last night. She had to get to the clearing- she had to see Quickbeam!  
  
The muscles in her legs were screaming, but she didn't listen to them. School had felt so long- much longer than was usual. Just a little further- a bit more- she burst into the clearing. Thankfully, Quickbeam was there. She ran over and clutched at his leg.  
  
"Quickbeam!" she said frantically. "Quickbeam! They're cutting down the trees! The trees across the road in front of my school! They're cutting them down! They had the bulldozers and everything! The man there said they were putting in houses or something like that. I don't want them to do it! Quickbeam?"  
  
Quickbeam looked down at her sadly. "I know, little one," he sighed. "I already know."  
  
"Then why don't you do something?" she cried. "Can't you?"  
  
He said nothing.  
  
"Quickbeam- I liked those trees," she said softly. Ellen began to climb up his leg to get to his branches, but Quickbeam lifted her up and held her for a moment.  
  
"I can't do anything about this, young child," he said.  
  
"But why not?" Ellen asked, frustrated. Quickbeam could do anything! He was an Ent!  
  
Quickbeam sighed again. "There aren't as many Ents as there once were. We can't defend the forests as well from these, buraroom, these tree-killers."  
  
"But-" Ellen stopped suddenly. Something connected in her head that she hadn't thought of before. "Wait- we? There are more of you? But I thought- I thought you were the only Ent!" Her eyes were alight with excitement.  
  
"There were many of us, yes. Then some became, hm, tree-ish, as you may say. As the trees begin to grow to be like us, so do we grow to be like the trees. Come," he said as he put her in his branches. "I have something to show you."  
  
~*~  
  
They walked for a long time. Quickbeam was humming sadly to himself. Ellen began to feel tired, and rather impatient. She rocked back and forth with the swaying of his branches, and was almost asleep when Quickbeam stopped in front of a gnarled tree.  
  
"Hm?" she breathed softly, sat up, and looked around inquisitively. "Er- why are we here?"  
  
Quickbeam gestured towards the tree.  
  
"What?" asked Ellen. "It's just- oh!"  
  
Quickbeam began to hum in his tree-speech, now soft and quiet, now louder, but still keeping a consistent pace. His voice, however, was not consistent, but varied as much as the species of trees. Now it was the voice of an ancient being, now a breath of wind and shuddering brown leaves, now the gentle creak of branches swaying. And the tree answered.  
  
"What is it?" she said in a hushed tone to Quickbeam when it had finished.  
  
"He is an Ent, like me," answered Quickbeam sadly. "Over the years, we become more tree-ish, as the trees become more Entish."  
  
"But- are there any Ents like you left? That can move and talk to people like me?"  
  
"I haven't seen any for- what would seem to you- a long time."  
  
"Does that mean most of the Ents are like this? Are they? Is this why you can't stop us from cutting down trees? Oh, Quickbeam!" Ellen's eyes filled with tears. "I'm so sorry." She began to quietly cry.  
  
Quickbeam was unused to tears. He had only seen them once before, long ago.  
  
~*~  
  
Quickbeam had been standing outside of his home, listening to the Entmoot continuing in the distance, when he heard a soft sound from behind him. He turned to see what it was and saw that one of the hobbits was sitting up, with tears pouring down his face. Curious, as he had never before seen tears, Quickbeam moved closer to see what was wrong, but stopped when the other hobbit had sat up and seen his companion's distress.  
  
"Pippin!"  
  
There was a sniffle from the other.  
  
"What's wrong?"  
  
"Oh, Merry, I was just thinking of what could happen if- if-"  
  
"If the Ents don't go to war?"  
  
"Exactly! What will happen? What could happen to the Shire? Our friends?" here he drew in a shuddering breath, "And Frodo and Sam?" Pippin looked towards Merry, his green eyes watery and sad.  
  
"Oh, Pippin-" Merry broke off suddenly, biting his lip. He seemed to be fighting back his own fears and tears. "Come over here," he said, and Pippin threw himself into Merry's tight embrace.  
  
'This is why I'm going to war,' thought Quickbeam firmly. 'For the little people. For the rowans. For the wellbeing of the innocents.' And with that, he turned back towards the Entmoot.  
  
~*~  
  
Quickbeam stared at Ellen's tears for his people. That meant a lot to him, that she should feel so deeply for his kindred. And he had his sorrows too, sorrows that he had kept back for many a year. Such things should not be bottled up for so long.  
  
Quickbeam threw back his head and howled mournfully, letting out his grief in one long, unearthly wail, his voice echoing and mingling with the small, gasping sobs of the child on his shoulder.  
  
~*~  
  
Right then. Onward!  
  
shirebound: Thank you! You don't know how much it means to me to get reviews from someone like you!  
  
LalaithoftheBrunien: Thanks! Sorry I couldn't update sooner.  
  
littlesaiyangirl: I'm sort of basing this girl on my little brother, a bit. That could explain some of the cuteness!  
  
AB4: Many apologies as to the lack of updates. Thank you!  
  
BoromirDefender: I'm glad it's original! I haven't seen too many stories about Ents, and I thought that they needed a bit of recognition.  
  
Elberethia: I'm a little paranoid of trees too, so I hug them whenever I can to keep them in a good mood. ::grins:: And I'm highly convinced that there are hobbits somewhere out there, or in the very least a few elves a- lingering.  
  
Aislynn Crowdaughter: Don't worry. I don't think I have any plans for Ellen to be blabbing about the Ents. She's too smart a girl to do that- as of now, that is. I'm not sure what she'll be like as she gets older. Yet.  
  
ShireElf: Funny, I salute people all the time- only I say "yes sir!" just to irk them. Irk. I love that word.  
  
Sylence: You're working on a Treebeard story? Cool! And sure, I can give you tips. Ents usually aren't so hasty as Quickbeam is. And they're very slow and not entirely precise, wandering from one subject to another, but still staying on track somehow. Also, their life is nature-centered.  
  
Alc Fluteo: I love the EE of The Two Towers! Have you seen it yet? My favorite parts are with the Ents. ::waves a flag that says "I love Ents!":: But hobbits are cool too. ::is wearing a Merry and Pippin t-shirt::  
  
soul: I wish I could have updated sooner. Sorry!  
  
Reviews are quite welcome. And Precious. Yes, they're very precious to me. My Preciouses! 


End file.
